Latinos are the youngest and fastest-growing segment of the American labor force, yet evidence suggests that they face considerable challenges gaining stable employment. While young Latino men have more work experience on average than their peers, the unemployment rate for Latino males aged 16-24 is 2.4 percentage points higher than the unemployment rate for white males of the same age, and double the unemployment rate of all American workers. The Rockefeller Foundation is working to advance inclusive economies that create the pathways to give everyone the opportunity to contribute to and share in prosperity—especially those facing the greatest barriers to advancing their well-being. Reaching that goal, and employing more youth in career-building jobs, will require better integration of our nation’s Latino youth in the labor market.
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), with support from The Rockefeller Foundation’s U.S. Youth Employment Initiative, recently released a report to explore the structural barriers that inhibit millennial Latino men from finding full-time employment, including the concentration of Latino workers in low-wage sectors of the economy, the limited job opportunities available through networks of friends and family—upon which they rely to a greater extent than other groups—undocumented immigration status, and implicit biases in hiring practices.
We commend NCLR on its efforts to bring these issues to light and on its continued effort to promote economic opportunities for Latino Americans.
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